15minuteaccount

Posted Jun-10-2008 By

sasso17ferat

Vel i have to say that i am throughly impressed with your pitch and furthermore, i really believe you are sincere this time.

As you know, i have questioned your intent on several topics but this time i think you are being straight forward and really want to help people in need.

That said, ive done my fare share of charity work in Africa and overseas. right now i only contribute to one charity, a local childrens hospital: www.choa.org.

i believe in keeping charity local and investing in childrMore..en, do you?

Im willing to see your bet and let the chips ride...perhaps we could have some sort of charity funded by LL; and as you suggested, handled by elected or chosen representatives. This fund could be used to disperse charity evenly to local childrens hospitals, animal shelters, veterans groups...something along those lines...taint reconstruction sounds like a nice charity but i think local children would be better served imo.

Posted Jun-11-2008 By

15minuteaccount

Posted Jun-11-2008 By

Local Maximum

I don't like donating to charities because I don't trust what they do with my money. I think it's too easy for people to blindly give their money away to feel good for themselves.
I think the best way is to start with your neighborhood, community and closely surrounding areas.
I volunteered for 1 year on a crisis intervention hotline and it was great, i felt good and learned much. I am starting a neighborhood watch to force out a drug dealer in my hood and plan on signing back up for the cMore..risis line volunteer.

I suggest getting active by donating your time instead of money.Less..

Thallium 213

Posted Jun-11-2008 By

billygoats

How do we know the money would actually get to where it is supposed to go?
Trust me $250 feeds one of those girls entire extended family for a year or more.
Yes she has issues with her second asshole but food is important and African males are lazy and corrupt and consider females as a burden.

Posted Jun-12-2008 By

U5A#1!!!

"just to suggest that people who eat organic foods
don't use drugs shows how little you know."

Wasn't suggesting that at all. I do know Vel drinks alot of wine and is often drunk when commenting. Aside from his pinpoint pupils Vel's never shown any sign of drug use. Slurred speech,dry mouth, rambling or inane and/or disjointed thinking/conversation,jaw-cracking or lip-smacking, nervousness,restlessness,scratching/rubbing of arms,face,legs or torso....etc.

Your small insult towarMore..ds me about how little i know shows how little you know. Anyway, you may be right about some other drug use,i can't be sure. Why don't you ask him, he'll probably tell you. ;)Less..

Posted Jun-11-2008 By

15minuteaccount

I want to make a change Vel, and this is something else I mentioned in the thread about charity....many of us have done, hope to do or will volunteer to do great things in the world...we're that type of breed, I think so anyway. You've always got your all talk and no walk but for the most part we're a scrappy bunch. I'm just the wild ole goat...lol...I'm like Vel I'm a crazy SOB....but loyal to the end.

Posted Jun-11-2008 By

Grassroots247

I like your brand of cynical hope! Show a vid of the Fistula Foundation's facility, complete with testimony from the surgeon who is to perform the procedure. Show the LiveLeak community the ground zero where our money donation will actually hit the ground and do some good. It wouldn't hurt to show a short testimonial from a former patient of the clinic who sings its praises (if she wishes to protect her identity, fine, a veil will suffice.

If this effort for just one patient succeeds, poMore..st a financial syllabus outlining the costs for a visit to Ethiopia by Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, or some such qualified group, complete with a plan for the physical resources, personnel, government permits, and publicity/patient response, and I will donate along with a suprisingly large number of the people you reach online. Otherwise all that will happen is a video excursion by a powerless idealist documenting the already well known tragic conditions plaguing the Dark Continent. (The video you posted is exactly that.) Better yet, set up a scholarship fund for ethiopian medical and business students to travel to the US, gain training and professional skills, so that they can return home and continuously improve conditions in Ethiopia. That would truly begin to change things instead of the current approach (slapping a band-aid on a plague victim.) Like a large number of americans open to the proposition of charity, the thought that only a vanishingly small amount of our donations will actually reach those who it is intended for, along with the evidence that no matter how much we give, after decades and decades of giving, the line of desperately poor remains just as long as it ever was, and meanwhile there isn't evidence of a success story nor a "thank you" to be heard.

Ethiopia is a predominantly christian country in a part of the world slowly coming under islamic control (Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Chad, etc., either have islamic governments or growing islamic militias/protogovernments with ambitious plans for expansion.) Raising the standard of living in Ethiopia is not only a christian thing to do for fellow christians, it is also a smart move to strengthen a strategic Western ally in a part of the world poised to dive into the enemy's camp.

As for your challenge that LiveLeakers have done nothing but counterproductive bickering:
The proposition that the LiveLeak community has no justification to exist as a community unless it performs charitable work is a decidedly leftist viewpoint. Right now, Liveleak is a center for individuals of all stripes to view, discuss, and contribute media materia. That's why I participate. Here at Liveleak there is raw information I don't find elsewhere, and opinions I can listen to from all over the globe...some informed and timeworthy, some kneejerk and useless. Just because the Liveleak community doesn't subsidize charity work doesn't mean it has no justification to exist. Of course polarization will result when you set up a forum for populations with fundamentally contradictory worldview to communicate directly with each other. Imagine Louis Farrakkan and Bill O'Reilly having a direct conversation with one another. Expecting that all the divergent viewpoints of a free people to somehow converge in harmony/obedience to a single unifying priority defined by a single value system is the dream of totalitarians. As an Israeli statesman observed: freedom of speech makes dictatorship impossible, and democracy intolerable. (Yes, that's a decidedly independent viewpoint.)

I couldn't agree more with the proposition that the USA needs to "stop bragging about being #1, and start BEING #1". Of course there is unending disagreement within the USA on what it means to "be #1".Less..

Posted Jun-10-2008 By

papapang2007

Posted Jun-10-2008 By

15minuteaccount

You had me at the beginning, right wing versus left wing and the belittling that goes on. I thought... hmmm, maybe this guy is a moderate in disguise, then reality hit. Sorry, fistula's are not confined to your description and are not life threatening. What money I do have I contribute to the Susan G. Komen foundation beacuse I lost my wife to beasrt cancer. What is left goes to sponsor a child in Ecuador. Good luck with your charity though and I hope it is successful.

Posted Jun-11-2008 By

Windolicker

Ha ha ha holly shit like usual!
I am going to tell you nice story about The Fistula Foundation :
One English women decided to take holliday in Ehiopia
in order to adopt baby and take it with her to Britain so when she arrived at her home in London after long period she feed him milk powder this baby started to get sick day after day then when she took him to doctor for diagonist and examination she was shocked because the doctor told her that this baby is 50 Years old.